Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester: A Story of Power and Class in the Edwardian Country House

My story in Fifty Shades of Green, “Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester and the Walled Garden,” gets its inspiration from the English landed gentry and their country house.

At the basic level walled gardens are a common feature of the English country house, though they are rather more traditional in their choice of rose gardens and formal flower beds than Lady Sally’s more risqué version with its poisonous and prickly plants. It struck me that a walled garden would make a great setting for a BDSM gardening story because it’s an enclosed area offering privacy where somebody could get away with anything, as Lady Sally does in the story!

There is also a genre of writing, both novels and screenplays for film and television, associated with the Edwardian country house. Why the Edwardian period in particular? Well, readers have the hindsight the characters cannot possess because they know a generation of husbands, brothers and sons are about to get slaughtered in the trenches of the Somme and other First World War battlefields. This gives the period an added poignancy. It also means the Edwardian period was the last hurrah for the English aristocracy. Ok, it may have taken many more years before we finally shook off our fore-lock tugging submission to the landed gentry but after the First World War things could never quite be the same again for the aristocracy.

So, into this world steps my character, the strict dominatrix Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester (the name is an amalgamation of two real East Yorkshire landed families). On one level the story is pure kinky fun in which my over-the-top kick-ass dominatrix reinvents her walled garden as an outdoor play area to punish her submissive slaves.

But Lady Sally is also a parody of the country house genre and the behaviour of the aristocracy during perhaps the last period when they could get away with anything. She dominates, punishes, humiliates and screws her gardener, Jack Buckingham, just as the English aristocracy has screwed us for centuries. Yet, in a strange way, Jack is complicit in his submission and humiliation. He really wants it and rather enjoys being dominated, which I think mirrors our fascination for the aristocracy.

In a short comic scene in the story, Lady Sally gets excited about introducing a water feature into her garden and threatens to piss all over her gardener, which is pretty much what the ruling class has been doing to us, and still does—though it’s more likely to be a banker or global corporation these days doing the pissing.

Yes, of course the story is still written as a piece of kinky BDSM fun, but it’s also a story about power, both personal and class.

Lady Sally features in other short stories by me. “Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester and the Silk Merchant of Samarkand” appears in Beltane Fire (Xcite Books) and another story, “Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester and the Automaton Horse,” has been accepted for publication.

—Slave Nano

Excerpt from Fifty Shades of Green, “Lady Sally Rudston-Chichester and the Walled Garden”

Jack felt more comfortable now the conversation had turned to gardening, “What did you have in mind, your ladyship—formal flower beds, a rose garden, a vegetable garden, exotic fruits? There are lots of possibilities for a walled garden.”

“Ah, well, there you are, Mr. Buckingham, I do have some quite specific ideas for the space. Perhaps it would be easier to take a look and I can talk you through some of my plans.”

As they made their way to the walled garden they must have appeared a strange group, Jack Buckingham in his tweed jacket, waistcoat, silk cravat and bowler hat perched on his curly brown hair along with the transvestite French maid and, leading the way, the formidable figure of Lady Sally, her hour-glass figure restrained in skin-tight rubber.

She unlocked the door in the wall and opened it. The garden was in a sorry state. Jack reflected that it would take a lot of work to clear before he could even begin any planting. But it was an excellent space and he could see it had enormous potential.

“The plans, Victoria,” ordered Lady Sally, at which command her maid produced a roll of papers from within her petticoats.

Lady Sally laid them out on a tree stump and began to expound, pointing to her sketches.

“In this corner here I want colour. I thought some foxgloves against the back of the wall here, probably in purple and then some oleander in clusters of red, pink and white just here. And a laburnum tree in the corner there. And I want some deadly nightshade. I simply love belladonna and its black berries, dark as night, just like me!”

Jack laughed, “You’d best be careful, Lady Sally—all of those plants are poisonous.”

“Oh yes, of course, I know that!”

“You want them to be poisonous?”

“Absolutely. I understand digesting small quantities can increase the heart rate and some even have hallucinogenic qualities. Do you have any further suggestions, Mr. Buckingham?”

The gardener was a little taken aback but fortunately knew something about which flowers had poisonous qualities, “Well, narcissus would be good or lily of the valley and chrysanthemum. But you have to be careful with chrysanths because even touching them can cause itching and irritation.”

“Really, how fascinating. Well, I simply must have some chrysanthemum then . . . some orange and yellow will be good too.”

Jack was intrigued and not a little alarmed at Lady Sally’s predilections.

“Here,” she said pointing along another length of the wall, “I want a willow tree and then some bamboo, cane and rattan. Can you obtain some mature plants as I’ll want to use them straight away?”

“Use them?”

Lady Sally took up her whip, flexing it in her hands, and fixed him in the eye, silently conveying her intent for this area of the garden.

“Oh, I see, yes. Well, I should be able to get some mature ones.”

“Different sizes and flexibility? I’ll need them all to hand, you see.”

“Well, yes, I know an excellent market garden where I source anything rare or unusual. They’ve never let me down.”

“The mature tree in the centre of the lawn can stay but then I would like a small vegetable garden over there with carrots and courgettes.”

“Just those, wouldn’t you like more? I can lay out a proper vegetable garden for you.”

“No, that will suffice. I’m only looking for vegetables of a certain shape. And I want some chilli plants as well.”

“That’s not a problem, your ladyship. I can propagate them in a greenhouse and transfer the fully grown plants into your garden.”

“Excellent. Now, over here,” Lady Sally said gesturing toward another corner, “I don’t want to clear all of the nettles, you must leave a largish patch of them and the thistles too. And then what I’d really like is some giant hogweed against the wall, a holly bush and some poison ivy . . . but it must be poison ivy.”

“It’s not native to England, your ladyship, but I can find some and see if it’ll take. It causes a painful itch, though, and the sap from hogweed stings. I got some on my hand once and it really burnt.”

“Oh, excellent. I’m most pleased, Mr. Buckingham. You clearly know your plants and wildflowers. Just imagine when some of these come into contact with the most sensitive parts of the male anatomy.”

“Indeed. Oh, just talking about it is making me excited. I’m so impatient now. I can hardly wait.”

“Sorry, Lady Sally, but do you mean to use all of these?”

“Why, yes, of course! Have you not realised, Mr. Buckingham, I want the walled garden for my outdoor play area. It will be my little garden of pain!”

Blurb and buy links

Fifty Shades of Green is a garden of naughty delights!Within our pages you’ll discover:
– Virile gods and their mortal conquests.
– A community garden’s secret (and very dirty) fertility ritual.
– An Edwardian dominatrix living out her sadistic garden fantasies.
– Student/teacher lessons in horticultural hotness.
– Young lovers seeking the help of green witches.
– A beautiful, blind priest who helps an injured traveler.
. . . and so much more.

Peek inside the garden gate.

(You know you want to.)

A dozen racy tales await.

Fifty Shades of Green is a collection of twelve delicious and erotic short stories with gardening themes. What you’ll find in these pages is hotter than the hottest pepper on the Scoville index of heat! And smart, not smutty. Well . . . maybe a little smutty.

Slave Nano is a writer of erotic stories with dark and exotic content often drawing on the themes of female supremacy, BDSM and fetish, frequently in fantasy, paranormal or historical settings. His short stories and novellas have been published by Xcite Books, House of Erotica and in Smutters and Coming Together anthologies. His full-length erotic novel, Adventures in Fetishland, a bdsm/fetish reinvention of Alice in Wonderland, was published by Xcite Books in 2012. You can find out more about Slave Nano and his writing on his website at http://www.slavenano.co.uk